I have a buddy whose last job laid him off every year beginning of dec and rehired him end of every january.
some companies just work this way, I hope that the people laid off get new jobs quicly or get back in with wotk near future
should be fine, paticulary if the ranger is 2 weapon primarily
you will need to tailor the fight to the party a little more carefully but you should be fine
the wizard forums are not going away as far as I can tell.
this was was posted on there forums also
A post by randyb on his blog states
"The forums are alive and well, and maintenance of them will actually get more resources thanks to this decision.
MEH I think the porter could be a fun class to play like any of the options that dragon showed up I would change some of the choices but the concept could be fun
to be fair it was hard in 3rd to take a party that had characters like thoses listed and balance a cr fight around them, it could of course be done but it was easy to get the party in over its head. the system assumed certian things such as a party of 6th level characters having fireball level...
you could do it with 1 character if you were careful with encounters, I would advise a fighter or pally, and use lower level creatures most of the time
I think you are looking at this the wrong way, rangers = fighters that can spec in 2 weapon.
if you want a diffrent class to spec in it they need to multiclass
i would do it as a ritual "making a magic item style" but give him a reduced componant cost due to supplying 1 of the needed ingrediants, say a 50% cost reduction
It is better then cleave for killing minions which is cleaves main use but that does not not mean that it is overpowered.
we will need to measure fighter and shield mage side by side in completness to determine if shieldmage is a batter class.
3.x has this exact issue also if using a premade.
if your playing 2 characters then the dm is better off making his own campaign and structering the fight for those 2.
it is no diffrent then 3.x in this regard